Thursday, November 20, 2014

Here's an interesting page from the Voice of Jacob's October 1841 issue - the periodicals' second. It gives the guidelines for saying kaddish for "the guidance of a colonial congregation under [the] pastoral care" of Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell.(Perhaps in Australia?)

In case you weren't sure how they felt about the Czar (from the safety of New York, naturally).

This idea found a new target some decades later.

Incidentally, you can see here three versions of the prayer for the Czar and his family, including the ever-changing heirs apparent - brother George, then Mikhael, and finally son, Alexei - in these texts from siddurim printed in 1897, 1901, and 1908.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Here are some fantastic pictures of R. Hermann Adler (1839-1911) at various stages of his life, from a boy of 8 to yeshiva bochur at 17, young rabbi at 24, marriage at 27, established rabbi at 37, and "delegate Chief Rabbi" - due to the poor health of his father - at 44.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Here's an interesting little story about the reading room in the NYPL in 1925. An impressive, scholarly looking Chassidic man is spotted, and assumed to be reading some sort of lofty mystical text. It turns out, he's reading "Fiddler on the Roof" (Tevye der Milkhiger). The broader article is discussing leisure and the importance of childish tendencies in adults.

Here's a little blurb about some recognition of the yeshiva of Volozhin by the Russian government. Apparently this recognition meant that some students could receive stipends from the government. 1881.

Sunday, August 03, 2014

I'm pleased to present this wonderful guest post by David Roth. I enjoyed it very much, and hope you do as well! - S.

I.Introduction

This paper will be a description of my great-grandfather's chumash/siddur,
which was printed in early twentieth-century England. The book is interesting,
because it contains the full yotzerpiyutim for the shabbosos
of the year, and thus is evidence that the Ashkenazic Jews in England at the
time were reciting these piyutim. This practice is not well documented, so evidence of this sort is
valuable. This paper should be a contribution to the study of the question of
where and when piyutim were dropped in various communities in the modern
period, not only in England, but in the Ashkenazic world as a whole. The paper will also describe various
features of the book, relating to the regular liturgy and to the chumash
that the book contains.

I found this book in my grandparents' basement, in Potomac, MD. My grandmother inherited it from her father,
Henry Minden, who was born in Hamburg in 1890, lived in Hull, England from
1894-1904, then returned with his parents to Hamburg, where he remained until
1938. At that point, he moved with his
family to Golders Green, where he was an early member of the Golders Green Beth
Hamedrash (GGBH/Munk's). The inside cover
of the bereishis volume of the chumash contains a note that it
was purchased from Martin Sulzbacher. My
grandmother explained that when the family arrived in England at the end on
1938, they had virtually no seforim or other posessions, and she
remembers that Mr. Sulzbacher was a used seforim dealer in the
neighborhood, meaning that this chumash and siddur with piyutim
was probably purchased from him around 1938 or 1939. The book was already used, and there are remnants of an earlier
name plate which seems to have been intentionally removed.

The title page of the book bears the dates 1900, and it is called
"Second Edition, carefully Revised and Corrected." However, it is impossible that the volume as
a whole was printed in 1900, for the prayer for the Royal Family does not bless
Queen Victoria, but rather King Edward and his family, who took reign only on
January 22, 1901. Most likely, the date
1900 reflects an earlier edition, which the printers neglected to update.[1] It does not necessarily reflect the
liturgical practices of most British Jewry in 1938, although as we shall see
below, it would have been useful to my great-grandfather in GGBH.

These are the title
pages in both Hebrew and English in the Vayikro volume. Notice the Sephardic spelling of לונדון, which shows
that the Ashkenazi community in London had been influenced by the Sephardic
community which had been there before them.[2]

II.Background
about Ashkenzic minhogim regarding the recitation of piyutim

Since at least the 13th century, the Ashkenazic prayer rite
has been split between two major minhag families – Eastern (also known
as מנהג פולין)[3]
and Western (also known as מנהג
אשכנז (המערבי)). While there are minor differences in nusach
ha'keva (the non-piyutim, regular prayers of the year), the major
differences are regarding piyutim.
The traditional Ashkenazic communities recited piyutim not only
on yomim noroim and selichos, but also on many occasions
throughout the year, including special shabbosos and all yomim tovim. The main types of piyutim include yotzerpiyutim (in birchos kerias shema of shacharis), kerovos
(in chazoras hashatz), and maarivim (in birchos kerias shema
of maariv).[4] In ashkenaz, kerovos were recited
only on 4 parishios, shabbos hagodol and yom tov, as well
as special weekdays such as Purim.[5] On the other hand, yotzerpiyutim
were recited on many shabbosos throughout the year. At some point in the nineteenth century, yotzerpiyutim, and to a lesser extent maarivim, began to fall out of
usage in many communities. Kerovos
fared a bit better, and indeed many communities today such Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem
(MTJ) of the Lower East Side, Manhattan; the synagogues affiliated with the
Jewish Educational Center (JEC) in Elizabeth, New Jersey; the Hendon Adas in
London; as well as many chasidic synagogues, recite kerovos
today.[6] It must be remembered that yotzerpiyutim
were recited on many more occasions than kerovos, and therefore dropping
yotzerpiyutim means dropping piyut for most shabbosos
of the year.

A prominent Western Ashkenaz kehilloh is K'hal Adath Jeshurun (KAJ) in
Washington Heights, where they recite all piyutim of all genres of the
printed Western Ashkenazic rite.[7] There are a few other Western Ashkenaz communities
that recite all or most piyutim, mostly in Europe. However, to the best of my knowledge, GGBH is
the only Eastern Ashkenaz synagogue in the world which I know for sure recites yotzer
piyutim throughout the year.[8]
My great-grandfather davened in
GGBH from 1939 until the end of his life, in 1971.

III.About my
great-grandfather's chumash

My great-grandfather's chumash/siddur is a five-volume chumash,
one sefer per volume, with English translations on facing pages. The haftoros are printed after each parsha,
according to both the Ashkenazic (called "German" in English) and
Sephardic (called "Portuguese" in English) customs; however, it does
not contain any megillos. The
second half of the volume is a shabbos siddur, with the following title:
תפלות לשבתות עם היוצרות מראשית
השנה ועד אחרית השנה.[9] The English title of this section is simply
"Sabbath Service". The main
part of the siddur contains an English translation, and the entire siddur,
including piyutim, include English instructions. More about that later.

Just a few notes about the nusach of the siddur itself. Every time kaddish is printed, it is
preceded by the verses ועתה
יגדל נא כח ד' כאשר דברת לאמר
(Numbers 14,17) and זכר רחמיך
ד' וחסדיך כי מעולם המה (Psalms
25,6), with instructions to recite these verses in an undertone.[10] Following mincho on Friday afternoon,
the following instruction appears "The Reader, in the repetition of the
Ameedah, finishes at בשלום, and says Kaddish." It is clear from this instruction that Oleinu
was not recited because the services of kabbolos shabbos and maariv
followed immediately after mincho.
Ba'me madlikin appears after kaddish tiskabal of maariv. After ba'me madlikin appears an
instruction to recite kiddush in shul. After mincho of shabbos, there appears pirkei
avos for the summer and borechi nafshi and shir ha'maalos
(Psalms 104 and 120-134) for the winter.
None of these features is surprising, as they are all typical of old
school Ashkenazic shuls, both Western and Eastern.[11] Also, the book does not have מזמור שיר חנוכת הבית לדוד before boruch sh'omar; the minhag
to recite this psalm is quite late, and it is not surprising that it does not
appear here, although it is recited in GGBH, and I do not know what is done
today in United Synagogue congregations.
Another interesting minhag regards shabbos mincho,
"After the Torah is read, some Congregations say מזמור שיר ליום השבת till עולתה-בו, page 16, in the Evening
Service." This minhag is
not so well known in America or Israel, but it appears to have been common in
Eastern Ashkenaz shuls, I have seen it personally in GGBH, and I have
heard that various shuls in New York, such as Ohab Zedek and Jewish
Center, recite it.

In addition, the book contains some specifically British minhogim. For example, the following instruction
appears: "In most English Congregations the following Psalm and Hymns are
said before ברוך שאמר."
This is referring to Shir shel Yom, Shir Ha'yichud, and Shir
Ha'kovod (aanim zemiros), which are printed on the subsequent pages.[12] Additionally, the Prayer for the Royal
Family appears in the form הנותן
תשועה, after yekum purkon
and the mi she'beirach for the congregation; the figures named in it are
"אדונינו המלך Our Sovereign Lord, King EDWARD, our
Gracious Queen ALEXANDRA, GEORGE, Prince of WALES, the Princess of WALES, and
all the ROYAL FAMILY, ירום הודם."[13] According to Raphael Dascalu, the phrase
"In most English Congregations … " indicates a community following
the practices of the United Synagogue, and this brings us to the main point of
our paper, that an apparently United Synagogue rite was reciting full piyutim
throughout the year. Any further
information from readers about what community this book is associated with
would be appreciated.

The Prayer for the Royal
Family

Note that GGBH, where my great-grandfather davened, and which
still recites most piyutim today, is not a member of the United
Synagogue. It does not affiliate with
that organization; and moreover, the founders of the GGBH community arrived in
England as refugees only in the late 1930s, almost seventy years after the
founding of the United Synagogue. It is
quite possible (though by no means certain) that by the late 1930s, the United
Synagogue communities were no longer saying yotzer piyutim; the
practices of GGBH are primarily based not on pre-existing British practice, but
on the customs of Hamburg and Berlin, which the refugees had taken with them
from mainland Europe. Nonetheless, both
the old United Synagogue practices and those of Hamburg and Berlin were based
on the traditional Eastern Ashkenazic Rite, and therefore would have been
similar.[14]

IV.The Piyutim
contained in the Chumash/Siddur

Before we talk about the piyutim proper, we should mention a few
passages that are added or substituted in the nusach ha'keva when piyutim
are recited in birchos kerias shema of shacharis. The main part of the siddur contains
three passages to be added or substituted in birchos kerias shema. The first is right after the opening of the berocho
of yotzer or: אור עולם
באוצר חיים אורות מאופל אמר ויהי. The second replaces the passage v'ho'ofanim
v'chayos ha'kodesh: והחיות
ישוררו וכרבים יפארו ושרפים ירנו ואראלים יברכו פני כל חיה ואופן וכרוב לעמת שרפים
לעמתם משבחים ואומרים. The third replaces the paragraph al ho'rishonim:
על הראשונים ועל האחרונים לעולם
ועד חוק ולא יעבור אמת שאתה הוא ד' א-לוהינו וא-לוהי אבותינו לעולם ועד: אתה הוא מלכנו מלך אבותינו אתה למען שמך מהר
לגאלנו כאשר גאלת את אבותינו אמת מעולם שמך הגדול עלינו נקרא באהבה אין א-לוהים
זולתך.[15] There is also a fourth passage which is
added to birchos kerias shema on some days when piyutim are
added, namely בגלל אבות תושיע
בנים ותביא גאלה לבני בניהם,
however, this siddur prints this passage at the end of the relevant piyutim
and not in the body of the siddur.

The piyutim themselves – yotzros for the year, as well as kerovos
for 4 parshios and shabbos hagodol – are printed after musaf,
before mincho, and they appear in the same size font as the rest of the sefer.[16] Each volume contains only those piyutim
that are relevant during the time of the reading of that sefer.[17] There is no English translation for the piyutim,
which is somewhat surprising, and this must have been an annoyance to British
Jews, given the difficulty in understanding piyutim; however, the book
includes detailed English instructions about the exact locations in the shabbos
service for each relevant piyut.
These facts, namely that the piyutim are printed before mincho,
that the books contains detailed instructions of where they are recited, and
that they are printed in the same size as the rest of the sefer, seem to
make it fairly clear that the congregations in England around this time were
actually reciting these piyutim; the editors did not simply include them
for cosmetic or reference reasons. This
is interesting, because today, United Synagogue congregations barely recite piyutim
at all, and certainly not Yotzer piyutim. I would appreciate any information from readers who might know
when Yotzer piyutim fell out of use in United Synagogue congregations.

Note the instructions
for where in the service to recite each piyut. Also note the Livorno typeface, which is further evidence of
Sephardic influence on the Ashkenazi community.

There are a few weeks on which different Eastern Ashkenazic communities
recited different piyutim for the same occasion. In these cases, many nineteenth to twentieth
century siddurim, such as Avodas Yisroel (Eastern), published by
Seligman Baer, and Otzar Ha'tefilos, published by the Vilna Romm
printing press, indicate both variants.
This siddur indicates only one in each case. This is valuable evidence for what was
practiced in England at the time. These
are:

Guf yotzer[18]
for Shabbos Hagodol:אאמיר
מסתתר (and not אתי מלבנון, the other variant).

Ofan[19]
for the first Shabbos after Pesach:ארוגי עוז
(and not אראלים וחשמלים, the other variant).

Ofan for the second Shabbos after Pesach:יחיד ערץ (whereas some other Eastern Ashkenazic congregations recited no
ofan this week).

Note that Baer's siddur indicates ארוגי עוז
as the general Eastern Ashkenazic custom (perhaps meaning the Polish lands),
and אראלים וחשמלים as "Behm and Bruenn" (that is,
Bohemia and Brno, the region later known as "Oberland" – Austria,
Western Hungary, and Czech lands). On
the other hand, he indicates יחיד
ערץ as specifically the rite
of Behm and Bruenn. GGBH recites the
two ofanim as indicated in this book, however they say אתי מלבנוןas the guf yotzer for shabbos
hagodol. My great-grandfather would
have had trouble following on this shabbos, although perhaps he just said the
"wrong" one, since anyway it would have been recited almost entirely
silently.

Another feature worth noting is the inclusion of the piyutim of
the genre of ahavo[20]
on various shabbosos over the course of the year. This would be unremarkable, since all
printings of Eastern Ashkenazi piyutim include them; however, we must
note it here, because GGBH does not recite ahavos, and it seems from
their minhogim book that they never did. It is unclear if any synagogue in the world recites these piyutim
today, any information from readers would be appreciated.[21]

V.Conclusion

In conclusion, this volume opens up a window into the practices of the
British Ashkenazic synagogues of the early twentieth century. In this paper, we have seen that the
practice of reciting piyutim, which is so commonly disregarded today,
was still being followed. The book does
not even contain a note that some congregations omit or some congregations
recite; rather it is simply assumed that piyutim are recited. We hope that the worshippers of the time saw
the beauty of these piyutim, and that the piyutim enhanced their
prayer experience.

Appendix: Unusual candle lighting times

I'm not quite sure what's going on with these candle lighting times,
which appear for a couple weeks of each year (note: this is the page in the vayikro
volume, so it is not meant to contain the whole year, but I can't find any
rhyme and reason even for which weeks it does or does not include). However, see the post at http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-time-is-shabbos-in-1842.html. Also, note that all of these candle lighting
times listed are only for before this sefer is printed. Furthermore, the latest candle lighting time
for the entire year is 7 o'clock, but plag ha'mincho (the earliest time
to light candles for shabbos) in London gets as late as 7:39, so it appears
that they were using a different time system than is currently in place. Of course, the lack of daylight saving time
could account for that discrepancy.

[1]In
reality, this book could not really be the second edition, but rather a later
edition, nor could it really have been printed as a whole in 1900. According to the catalog entry at worldcat.org,
there was a "second edition" of this book printed in 1867, as well as
in 1893, such that the 1900 edition must be at least the fourth edition, meaning
that our book, which in truth must have been printed between 1901 and 1910 (as
we can see from the Prayer for the Royal Family), must be at least the fifth
edition. As another suggestion, it is
possible that the printing of the book actually began in 1900, and continued
passed the accession of King Edward to the throne in January 1901. This would mean that the title page was
printed before the rest of the book, which seems unlikely. Moreover, we know that the claim on the
title page that this is the second edition is inaccurate, so the possibility
that there could be other inaccuracies on the title page should not be
surprising. The fact that the candle
lighting times in the book (see appendix) begins with 1879 further complicates
the picture of when the book was printed, as the candle lighting times have
clearly been updated since the first appearance of the "Second
Edition" in (at latest) 1867, but they are not up to date in our edition.

[2]See
Y. Prager, "The early years of London’s Ashkenazi community" in
Yerusaseinu 5 (2011), page 8, footnote 23.
The spelling I would have expected in an Ashkenazic publication such as
this would be לאנדאן.

[3] See J. and A.
Fraenkel, "Prayer and Piyyut in the Mahzor Nuremberg" (Hebrew) 2008, (here),
pp. 6-8. (To be published in an
expanded version in English in the forthcoming volume on Machzor Nuremberg.) Note that various communities in northern
Germany, including Hamburg – where my great-grandfather was from – followed the
Eastern minhag; see D. Goldschmidt, Machzor for Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew),
Introduction page xiv (יד).

[4] In Ashkenaz, maarivim were recited
only on yom tov. The book
discussed here is a siddur, not a machzor, so it does not include
any yom tov liturgy; therefore we will not address maarivim here.

[5]This
describes the situation in Ashkenaz. In
other regions, the recitation of kerovos was not limited to these
occasions. In fact, the Cairo geniza,
reflecting the prayer traditions of Eretz Yisroel of over a thousand
years ago, contains kerovos for every shabbos of the year, and
ever for weekdays such as Tu B'shvat.

[6]Tragically,
many communities in the 20th century, probably only in the second
half, have dropped kerovos for regolim, and say only 4 parshios,
shabbos hagodol and yomim noroim. The origin of the practice is unclear, but it is probably a result
of not having machzorim, whereas the kerovos for 4 parshios
have been printed in siddurim in recent centuries.

[7]There
are a very few piyutim printed in the Western machzorim that KAJ does
not say, but these exceptions are negligible.
(In all cases, these were piyutim that were already not said in
Frankfurt.)

[8]I
have heard rumors of synagogues in Vienna; Budapest; Sydney, Australia; Kiryat
Sefer; Stamford Hill (London); and Monsey, which recite yotzer piyutim,
although I have not substantiated these, and I do not know how consistently
they recite them. Any information about
any of these places, or other synagogues, would be much appreciated.

[9]The
word תפלה or תפלות was, and in some cases still is, used as the word for a siddur
in many Ashkenazic communities. The
subtitle of the siddurמראשית השנה ועד אחרית השנה is based on Deuteronomy 11,12, although the text there reads ועד
אחרית שנה, without the hey.

[10]This
is true even before shemone esrei of maariv and borechu of
shacharis, even though at these times there is a potential issue of hefsek.

[11] The non-recitation
of Oleinu in Friday mincho has become increasingly scarce over
the course of time, even GGBH today says Oleinu, apparently because of a
maase sh'hoyo in the mid-twentieth century, involving a person who got
extremely angry that he would not be able to recite kaddish following mincho,
so he ran out of the shul and slammed the door on his fingers, severely
injuring himself. After that, R' Eli
Munk, who was the Rabbi of GGBH at the time, suggested that they should start
saying Oleinu in mincho in order that people should not get so
upset and come to injure themselves. I
have seen the non-recitation of Oleinu myself only in KAJ Washington
Heights, Shaare Hatikvah Washington Heights, Erlau in Katamon, Jerusalem, and
IGB Basel.

[12] As noted below, GGBH does not follow United
Synagogue practices, rather they recite only shir ha'yichud at this
point (or rather, before מזמור שיר חנכת הבית לדוד, which does not appear in our book), shir shel yom is
said on shabbos and yom tov before the Torah is taken out, and shir
ha'kovod is recited at the end of the services, following Oleinu.

[13]Note
that this constellation of the Royal Family reflects the situation between
Queen Victoria's death on January 22, 1901 and King Edward VII's death on May
6, 1910.

[14]I
have heard, although I have not been able to substantiate, that the founders of
GGBH wanted to follow the Eastern Ashkenazic rite as opposed to the Western, so
that they would fit in with British Jewry and not stick out as German
immigrants, at a time when the United Kingdom was in a state of hostility
towards Germany.

[15]Note
that Western Ashkenaz also substitutes a variant version of the previous
paragraph, emes v'yatziv.
Although this is practiced today in KAJ and Shaare Hatikvah in
Washington Heights, as well as in other Western Ashkenazic congregations, it is
not relevant to England, GGBH, or this siddur, which are all Eastern
Ashkenazic.

[16]No
piyutim for yom tov, shabbos chol hamoed or Purim are
included. This makes sense because the
first half of the book is a chumash, which one would not be using on
these days, especially since it does not include megillos. This surely does not mean that piyutim
were not recited on yomim tovim; they would have been recited out of machzorim,
not a siddur/chumash.

[17]Every
volume begins with the piyutim for a shabbosbris and for shabbosrosh chodesh (because they can occur during the reading of any sefer
of the Torah), and then continues with the piyutim relevant during the
time of the reading of that sefer.
There is sometimes overlap; for example, the shemos volume has piyutim
for all of 4 parshios through hachodesh, since in a non-leap year,
the shabbos on which vayakehiel-pekudei is read is often hachodesh;
but the vayikro volume begins again with the piyutim for hafsoko
rishono, since in a leap year, the shabbos on which parshas vayikro
is read sometimes the first hafsoko shabbos.

[18]A
guf yotzer is the first yotzer piyyut of a sequence, recited
right after אור עולם באוצר חיים.

[19]An
ofan is a piyut recited after the verse קדוש קדוש קדוש in birchos kerias shema.

[20]An
ahavo is a piyut recited close to the end of the berocho of ahavo
rabboh.

[21]The
Western Ashkenazic liturgy includes one ahavo [אותך כל
היום קוינו].
It is recited twice a year, on the shabbos before shavuos and the
shabbos before tisha b'av. It is
still recited today in KAJ Washington Heights, and a few other
communities. However, this is not
relevant to the discussion of the Eastern rite, as that piyut is
exclusively Western.

The rather interesting inside joke says that his ambition is to the "Chief Rabbi of the Hitler regime."

In the class Who's Who, he's listed as the "Class socialist," which apparently sheds light on his 1933 politics.

Here's a very interesting account by R. Gifter's son about his father's transition to MTA from a Baltimore public high school, and success once there, link:

“My father told me that he knew only one blatt of Gemorah when he went to New York to be tested for admission,” Reb Binyamin Gifter related. “However, he progressed so quickly that he was soon attending the shiurim of HaRav Moshe HaLevi Soloveitchik.”

The YU yearbooks on archive.org are fascinating. For example, here we see that Rabbi Robert Gordis' nickname in high school was "Bob the Gob" (Elchanite 1923):

The same volume used the frontispiece for the Vilna Shas printed by the Romm company for its title page:

These volumes can be pored over for many, many interesting historical and sociological finds, and are well worth perusing. Here's one last item, an excerpt from the 1925 Elchanite, Dr. Pinchas Churgin, Principal of the Teacher's Institute of the Yeshivah (later president of Bar Ilan) gives a Hebraist angle to the value of yeshivas in the modern revival of the Hebrew language:

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. This is from a German magazine provided to troops for relaxation and entertainment during WWI. Dated June 19, 1915, this is from the Humor column, of Die Wacht im Osten.

And the little anecdote is, a very pious Jewish guy goes to the Wonder-rabbi of Sadagora and asks him who is going to win the war. The rabbi replies, God - Gott. "Gott," asks the man. "Explain it to me?" The rabbi replies, yes, Gott - it stands for G/ermanen O/sterreicher and T/uerkishchen T/rupen.

For more info about the reception of vaccines among Jews, see Ruderman, David B. "Some Jewish Responses to Smallpox Prevention in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A New Perspective on the Modernization of European Jewry." Aleph (2002): 111-144.

This
is 1762, and what happened was, a bunch of Jews beat up a Calvinist apostate Jew in Amsterdam. As it happens, he was a sailor, and his fellow
sailors went ashore to beat up the Jews who beat up the sailor. However,
they were outnumbered, and were beaten up by even more Jews.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Here's a rather interesting little postscript to an 1860* letter from Jonas Bondi to Isaac Leeser:

It says, "In Jeschurun I am in the company of Luzzatto, better than Szold, Wise and Illoway."

This refers to the Jeschurun published by Joseph Kobak, not Samson Raphael Hirsch (of whom Bondi was a critic). And he is talking smack about some famous names among the American rabbis of his day - one of whom - Wise - would become his son-in-law! Apparently he liked the company in Jeschurun, but not the American Jewish publications of the day.

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

This is an interesting piece that I found on the Isaac Leeser digital archive (link), a handwritten letter from Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer to the Occident, dated 26 Adar 5625. The letter asks Leeser to print an English version of an account on behalf of the "Central Committee for Building Dwellings for the Poor and Pilgrims in Jerusalem," of which Rabbi Hildesheimer was a member, along with Rabbis Jacob Ettlinger of Altona and Joseph Hirsch of Halberstadt.

Here are two excerpts from the piece, as printed in the Occident, at Rabbi Hildesheimer's request:

Below is the transcription from the site, with some corrections of my own. (If you can make corrections to make the poor English-or should I say, Englisch-in the final line intelligible, here is the link, to the letter.)

I don't know for sure if this is Rabbi Hildesheimer's own English, but I'd say - chances are.

***

ב"ה

To the rev. editor of the OccidentPhiladelphia

Eisenstadt 26 Adar 5625.

Since the great interest which you have always shown for the

wellfare (sic) of our brethren in all countries and particularly the unfor-

tunate Jews of the Holy Land is known to me I have the liberty to

send you the enclosed statutes etc of the dwellings which we are arecting (sic) on the holy ground and pray you to give insertion to it in your esteemed